president obama again stressed the u.s. commitment today. >> i've said directly to the prime minister of japan that the united states will continue to offer any assistance we can as japan recovers from multiple disasters. >> ifill: overall more than 90 nations have offered japan assistance. 15 of them are expected to send rescue crews within the next few days. >> suarez: the scope of japan's suffering is being told in towns that dot t coast, and each has its own story of loss without reckoning. one such place is rikuzentakata, where james mates has the first of a series of reports from independent television news. >> reporter: this is the town of rikuzentakata. your eyes will tell you something very different because rikuzentakata, home just 72 hours ago to almost 30,000 people, has been wiped from the face of the earth. the tsunami came, destroyed everything in its path, and then took much of what it had destroyed back out to sea. the rest it left heaps and splintered almost nothing built by man or spared. what happened he